Flaming Arrow
by Lightning Eyed
Summary: Hunters can only be killed in battle. Sadly, the Hunger Games is included in the definition of 'battle.' Thalia misses her brother beyond all else. Katniss wants to win for her sister. And everyone knows that mockingjays of a feather flock together.
1. Prologue

"How long have you been Lieutenant again?" Liana asked.

"Since 2009," Thalia said. "Do the math."

"A hundred and seventy-one years," Phoebe contributed, trying to be helpful. "Sixteen of which you were present for, and seventy-three of which have contained Hunger Games."

"Shit," Thalia said, rapidly standing up from her log. "The reaping is tomorrow. I have to remind Artemis."

"Don't be so stressed," Phoebe said. "District Nine is huge. They probably won't notice if we're not there."

"After what the kids from Six tried last year, I wouldn't be surprised if they did notice." Thalia dusted off her pants and fiddled with an arrow.

Phoebe cursed in Greek as her marshmallow went up on flames and blew it out. "Then we might as well go."

"A hundred and seventy-one years of nature can't be bad for a tribute," Liana said with a smile.

"Definitely not," Thalia said, shoving her own marshmallow into her mouth and heading towards the goddess's tent.


	2. Jason's Ghost

As the woman with sea-green hair and a brilliant yellow sparkly dress climbed the stage in front of the Justice Building, an unprecedented sense of dread overcame Thalia. The film clip rolled, the introduction was given. Thalia was barely paying attention; she'd seen it seventy-three times before. Her only focus was the woman's equally bright and shiny yellow nails reached into the glass ball.

_It's going to be me. _Thalia knew the sense of dread well; she'd gotten the same one on several near-death occasions in the past. Her own name rang out from the woman's mouth.

_Be bold about it, Thalia. In all likelihood, you'll win the games. You'll get one of those fancy mansions in the Victor's Village and never set foot in it, and all your Hunters will be safe from the Games from now on._

The thought motivated her. She stepped silently through the crowd. The words 'I volunteer as tribute' were on Phoebe's tongue, Thalia could see it. But with one backwards glance, she silenced her best friend. The woman atop the podium helped her scale the steps.

"You're certainly a young one," she said.

"I'm older than I look," Thalia said, ignoring the woman's reference to her thirteen-year-old appearance.

The woman shut up and drew a name out of the boys' ball.

"Julius Merrywood."

Thank the gods it wasn't someone Thalia knew.

The mayor started to recite the Treaty of Treason as Julius climbed up on stage. He shot her a glance, she shot him a glance, and she started fiddling with her charm bracelet. She nearly dropped it and caught it just before it extended into a spear. Julius reminded her of her brother, with his golden blonde hair and blue eyes, and a little scar on his cheek.

At that moment the mayor stopped his droning of the treaty, and the Panem national anthem began. With all its slow pace and low strings, it sounded like a death sentence. Peacekeepers led Thalia and Julius off the stage. Thalia wrenched her arms from their grasp and growled, "I'm perfectly capable of descending the stairs myself and I'm not going to run away."

The two Peacekeepers drew their handguns, but made no further attempts to restrain Thalia. Inside the Justice Building, she sat on a leather chair, although there were other pieces of furniture available.

Her first visitor was Artemis, who had for once shed her bow and quiver. She was dressed almost like someone from the Capitol, in her silver cocktail party dress. She held Thalia's circlet in her hands, and she slipped it back into her shoulder-length black hair.

"Take it as your token," the goddess whispered. "The tiara identifies you for who you are. It can't hurt anyone. It's memorable. They can't refuse you the right to take it into the arena, and if they do I can always turn Seneca into a jackalope."

"Again with the jackalopes, Lady Artemis?" Thalia smiled. "You need a new tagline. That one's almost two hundred years old."

Phoebe visited her next.

"If you die can I be Lieutenant?" she asked.

"Way to start a conversation," Thalia told her.

Other Hunters visited her, but nobody from the actual district. Finally the time came to board the train, and neither she nor Julius said a word as they stepped onto the gleaming vehicle that would take them to the Capitol in less than a day. Thalia dumped off her silver jacket and her boots in her car and padded back to the dining car in her socks. The Capitol escort, who was new this year, was now dressed in a ridiculous pale violet suit. Her nails had been painted to match it. Julius took his seat across from Thalia. She adjusted her circlet and gave him a small nod. While the food they were given was delicious, Thalia was distracted through the meal. Ever since the reaping, Jason had been… practically haunting her. She knew it wasn't her fault he'd died. In fact, he had lived the longest of any person Thalia knew outside of the Hunters, to the ripe old age of ninety-two. No, she remembered the younger Jason. How her mother had announced to Thalia she'd be having another baby. How the two of them were closer than most siblings were. How when Jason was six years old and Thalia was eleven, their mother had taken him to the wolves, and Thalia, in all her naïveté, had held a grudge against her mother, run away with Luke; because without Jason, there wasn't really a point in staying. How for ten years she'd thought he was dead. How she'd found him alive after trying to blow up King Midas' mansion in Nebraska. How they had defeated Gaea, but shattered the world into pieces. How they had hidden on Olympus during the war. How, when Panem had risen out of the ashes, they had lived as prestigious Capitol citizens, back in the days when the Capitol was benevolent and kind. How when the districts rebelled in the Twenty-First Year of Panem, they had helped their father keep the country from destroying itself. How they had had a new brother, Augustus Snow, in the Seventeenth Year of Panem and how he had risen to become President soon after the rebellion.

And the Hunters kept on hunting on the outskirts of District Nine. Jason died of old age soon afterwards. Thalia returned to the Hunters again, and the rest was essentially history.

The sky had clouded over from the happy sunlight at the reaping. Thalia sat at the window of the train and watched her father's lightning bolts curve across the sky. Julius joined her after awhile, staring out the side of the bullet as rain pattered on the top. A particularly bright strike lit up the car before the escort switched on the light.

"The reaping recap is about to start," she said.

Thalia shrugged and followed Julius into the theater car to watch the clip.


End file.
